Day 9- The Closing Overs

After spending five minutes in an eventually successful attempt to borrow a pen from a train attendant who spoke no English, and misreading a train schedule, leading to my nearly getting on the wrong train, I was off to Paris. After the kid who was trying to carry on a conversation with me in German got off the train, I had a first class compartment to myself. However, after messing with the thermostat for a while, I had to eventually concede the first class car had no heat, so that pretty well killed that and I moved up into second class. The seats reclined and I was tired enough to sleep. Unfortunately, some Asian gentleman in the same car was also tired enough to sleep and his favorite habit while sleeping was imitating a lumber mill. There was something of a highlight on the trip to Paris was when I managed to catch a glance of the world’s tallest church steeple on the way through Ulm.

But oh, Paris! What can you say about Paris? No, really, I’m asking you. The only thing I could tell you about Paris from that trip is what it looks like out the window of a train (not too many train tracks run near great landmarks) and the short walk between the Gare Du Este and the Gare Du Nord, which was very similar to sections of Munich, Amsterdam, London, Boston, Chicago and New York, except this time all the signs were all in French.

Gare Du Nord was pretty confusing. Not so much for lack of signage, there were plenty of signs, but it took so many turns to get from the entrance to the Metro platform that I got confused several times. Plus, there was one thing that I never got used to. It was nothing big, but it just messed with my head for some reason. The signs occasionally told people to go straight. No problem, I can do that. However, when the arrow for "forward" pointed straight down instead of straight up, I got very confused. I realize that arrows on highway signs also point straight down, but for some reason those down arrows left me puzzled a couple of times. I imagine it was probably due to nearby staircases.

I got on the train to the airport, got off the train and onto a bus headed to the terminal, entered the terminal, changed from hiking the boots to wrestling shoes (the hiking boots tend to set off metal detectors) found my airline, got in line and didn’t move for an hour. You see, the computers were not working and the people behind the desk were doing exactly nothing about it. As far as I could tell, they were simply standing around in the hope the computers would be coming back online. They didn’t. I should add that Rob and Troy were stuck at in an identically endless line two days later because the computers were still out of service.

Approximately 10 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave, the desk people figured they’d better really start checking people in and thus they did so. I arrived at the gate, we waited around for a while, they eventually boarded the aircraft and we took off.

I have no idea what the flight was like. I seem to remember several 15-year-old Brazilian girls, though that memory is pretty hazy.

Pittsburgh, was, however, pretty memorable, as the late takeoff and long lines at the check-in counter made it completely impossible for me to make my connecting flight to Columbus. Instead, I spent another 3 hours in an airport bar while waiting for the next flight from Pittsburgh to Columbus. This was where I was informed Ohio State made the Final Four. In men’s basketball, no less, which I had a great deal of trouble comprehending, as this was the same Ohio State that lost to Toledo earlier in the season.

I got on my plane. I flew to Columbus. I got my bag. I got in my car. I went home.